Verizon acquire Volicon

Verizon Digital Media Services has bought Volicon, the broadcast monitoring and content archiving company used by ABC, Disney, BBC, CBS and others.

Volicon monitor and record broadcast and OTT feed for compliance, quality control and ad-verification. The venture will improve Verizon's ability to offer a 'seamless option' for repackaging existing broadcast feeds and channels for could-based OTT services.

Eli Warsawski, CEO of Volicon and co-founder in 2004, said: “We are pleased to become part of the Verizon family and recognize tremendous alignment of our vision. This undertaking represents a strategic opportunity for our products to evolve and for our customers to greatly benefit.”

Sky Q to launch UHD this summer

Nick Herm, director of strategy at Sky, has confirmed that UHD TV will launch on Sky Q by the summer, in addition to voice control.

With the consumer in mind, Sky are looking to offer a range of products that cater to a fragmented audience with ever-changing viewing habits. Speaking at the Connected TV Summit, Herm explained that people are watching more video, but still prefer to watch content on their main TV screen.

Sky's internal research shows that differing age groups have significantly different viewing habits; professionals in their 20s who are not interested in sport spend over half their time watching on-demand content, while older people interested in sport spend over 95 per cent of their time watching linear channels.

Viewers want simpler remote controls

With the growing number of devices around the home, consumers are getting frustrated at over-complicated remotes, according to a study by Trendbox.

The survey, involving 1,812 people across the UK, France and Germany, analysed viewing habits and the way the audiences controlled their TV's. Results showed that the average number of remotes on each household was 3.3 and are ultimately overwhelming consumers.

41% of consumers want remotes to have fewer buttons on the device

“The overarching theme from the survey is that consumers want to do more with less. Despite viewers wanting advanced functionality, their demands are relatively straight forward. Control preferences include pointing to the TV to navigate and a remote that understands the devices in their living room and automatically programs and configures itself to operate all of them. People want their homes to be smart, but their control to be simple.” Menno Koopmans, senior VP subscripton broadcasting at Universal Electronics.